Fever Dreams
by flecksofpoppy
Summary: What would a Turk's nightmare look like? If Elena, Tseng, Reno and Rude were to have a fever dream, this is some version of what I would expect it to look like. Experimental...super experimental. No pairing. Just...creepy. And gore.


This is WAY out there and 100% surreal. licoriceallsorts asked me something about a recent, random Tseng/Rufus drabble I posted, and whether it was intended to be a dream of Tseng's. At the time, it wasn't exactly, but I could see it being interpreted as such because it's definitely sort of random and ethereal. But it got me thinking...what would a Turk's nightmare look like? So I wrote this. If Elena, Tseng, Reno and Rude were to have a fever dream, this is some version of what I would expect it to look like. I like the way Elena's came out the best. May go back and re-consider this at a later date, but right now, for experiment's sake- Note: I realize I got Elena's history a little mixed up. I'm still familiarizing myself with BC. I'll beg with you to roll with it until I get it 100% right!

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><p><strong>Fever Dreams<br>**

_Reno_

Reno's bitten his fingers clean off.

He's always liked the texture of nails and cuticles between his teeth; biting into his own flesh seems an appropriate reminder of his own mortality. He doesn't think much about death, but he knows that it's important to remember its presence.

When his fingers bleed, he licks it up, and thinks _the tang smells like the air _right after a kill. It's not the same type of blood, but it connects him to what's happening.

Right now though, Reno's bitten his fingers clean off. There he is, stood staring at his own endings of neatly partitioned bone. The nubs are white, stratosphered by pink and red chewed-bubblegum textured flesh. He's staring, a bit of disbelief, and the only thing he wonders: _where did my fingers go?_ He's spending some time figuring it out, swallows to check and see if they're in his throat - not there - bats at his pockets with his wrist to see if maybe he left them in there with his cigarettes - not there - and it doesn't hurt. Not a bit.

But it tastes bad. He knows that. His mouth is burning with the taste of marrow, and blood, and something rotten. He spreads out his stubs to inspect them, as someone might admire a recently manicured splay of fingers.

And then Rude is there and he's holding out his hand, closed and fisted, and looks at Reno calmly. He's wearing his sunglasses; he looks amused.

"Missing something partner?" And ten perfectly sheared off fingers drop right in front of Reno onto the ground.

He just smiles, snakish, at the man he knows so well, and says, "Aren't you?"

And Rude smiles without any teeth, and they laugh together, and then Reno sees that he's alone, and his legs disappear, and he's screaming the way he did the last time his e-mag flared. He swallows his jugular, picks up his missing fingers and swallows those too to keep everything together, but limbs keep going, disappearing; he doesn't know if they're being cut off, if they're vanishing, but he knows when his vocal cords aren't there anymore, because he can't hear the screams. He's screaming a name, and then he can't anymore.

_Tseng_

The chair he sits in is rickety, just as rickety as his limbs now. He watches the people pass, the children playing with sticks, gleeful screeches as they pull the wings off of flies, and the dust settles so thick.

He knows they murmur about him, the old codger sitting there for all the days, not seeming to care as the sun burns off his skin, sitting and watching, for so long now that no one remembers when he arrived or who he was before. No one here has a face, and he hasn't seen his own in long enough to even conjure up a memory. He doesn't know anyone. No one speaks to him. He's not sure then if he's a ghost or if he's a man.

He's not sure of what stuff he's made. The dust seems to be swirling faster and faster, and he's not sure how many days or months or years have passed. He's looking for a familiar face, can barely recollect, but seems to have a memory distantly, somewhere hovering in his mind, and he so achingly wants it that he feels every part of him hurt. It's the old hurt, the old want, and suddenly he spins a history that didn't exist until just this moment.

The past, his past, it's cast out like a gasoline puddle on top of a pond, tracing every swirl and every surface of movement there, coating it, all rainbows rainbows rainbows. It spreads and spreads until there's so much color he can't breathe, and there still, are those faceless people passing him by and the children tearing insects apart, dragonflies, dragonflies that he sees shining as they break in small hands.

He knows he's blind suddenly; he knows he's lost himself there under the shining gasoline surface of his sudden memory, blooming outward. He's trying to breathe, he's trying to remember, he's trying for those familiar faces. He wants to die, but he can't.

A word, and more of his body materializes here, and he says pathetically, _please_. Death, exit, go. But this is death, he realizes, because he's the only one here. He realizes that he's gone to hell.

The rickety chair he sits in is his alone, with his rickety old limbs. He is old, he is waiting for death. And he is alone, wishing for fires on water, no matter how quick they burn nor how bright they last. Familiar faces. He wishes, but still, he sits, and waits for something that never comes.

_Elena_

She's watching her sister flip clean shot glasses over one another and grin. It's summer and it's warm and everyone is smiling despite the heat. Her hair is so shiny blond sunlight that it's almost blinding, but Elena's smiling too, because that's what you do.

There's no talking in the bar, just clinking and jostling and good humored jabber down at a low, low decibel that has no syllables. She's feeling pretty good herself after that first shot of tequila and she thinks she should ask her sister about her love life, knowing that she gets rowdy in the summer and smiles way too much at the boys, and the boys smile back. But Elena's different, tries not to draw attention to herself too much. Not in that way.

Spinning glass and she tries to speak but nothing comes out, just something that sounds like voice, but her sister seems to respond; her bright eyes are looking at Elena with keen intelligence, smiling. And she's swirling tequila around and it's amber colored like her hair and it's beautiful and it's all glass, all shine, all voice without words and the whole world spins in a way that's lovely.

And she looks down at her red hands, and her sister asks her if she wants a shot. She looks over and sees a corpse slumped next to her at the bar, and she screams. Her sister just looks at her, shaking her head and laughing, shuffling glasses and the tinkle of her voice is as heavy as a pitcher of beer. All amber, all tears, all sickly sweet vomit stench of booze induced frenzy.

She's always wondered, what it would feel like to have a bullet spinning in her own brain, because she's spun enough now. And so she does; her sister offers her a shot, and she takes it her own way.

It's not like what she thought.

_Rude_

This assignment is easy and he's feeling confident. It's just another warehouse, another novice. Right now he doesn't remember the reason that Tseng gave him, if there even was one - usually it's just coordinates. _Find this, kill it. _He knows it's not because Tseng thinks he's stupid, or that Reno's stupid; it's because he knows they'll get the job done, so he doesn't bother with the details.

He wonders where his partner is for a moment, but then doesn't pursue it. He's sure he's off somewhere that makes sense. Besides, it seems like he's been going through this labyrinth of shipping containers for a long time. He does know where he's going. Doesn't he?

Then he sees The Target. He shoots The Target. The Target doesn't go down. He comes up close, execution-style, and grabs The Target by the throat to rip his windpipe out. Reno is yelling, telling him, _What the fuck what are you doing_. He stops.

And he knows then, he's finally lost it. He's finally gone crazy, and Reno's hands dazedly and desperately claw at the grip that's gone hard around his partner's neck, unsure as to whether he's hallucinating. He keeps it there, and for the first time since he can remember, he falters. He wavers. He doesn't know what to do.

He lets go, and then The Target isn't Reno anymore; it's just The Target. And he reaches for his gun, and it isn't there; he reaches for his knife, and it isn't there. He realizes he's naked, and turns around and there's Reno in front of him, staring, almost dead. And he croaks, _Partner, why? What the fuck?_

His hand aches. He tries to speak and can't. His throat isn't working. He's panicking, for the first time since he became a Turk. He used to panic all of the time until he schooled it out of himself, and now he's seeing Reno turned into a corpse because of him, because his hands are too hard, and he's too dumb and deaf nowadays to know the difference between The Target and flesh and blood that he cares whether lives or dies.

Reno looks at him, calm suddenly with dark red bruises around his neck, and he smiles. Lights up a cigarette, inhales with blue lips and dead eyes, and says, _Well damn, if you care that much, leave me alive Rude._

He doesn't know how, and he twists in his skin as he tries to remember what it's like to be clothed and gloved, to protect everyone else from his hands.


End file.
